A Weekend of Work & Music

Husband managed to get home for half of Saturday and all of Sunday. Prior to his arrival, heavy chores and shopping had to be done, including a run to the garbage dump. Then came an afternoon and evening of music. Up early Sunday, and the music continued. Didn't get any recording done. But we did get some arrangement problems on Goodbye Pork Pie and two others that were so bizarrely scored as to be nigh on impossible to sightread on the fly. Goodbye Pork Pie was beyond readable for me, though. It was written and notated off of the Jazz lead sheet using something I swear only Jazz players might comprehend.

A few weeks ago, I bought Forrest a book on notation, though, and that wound up being my savior. Where, before, he argued, he suddenly set to work and created a completely legible score ...with ease. I bless the fact that I spent the money to buy him the book, Behind Bars, The Definitive Guide to Music Notation by Elaine Gould, a rather pricey hardbound, but already worth every penny of its price. It was cheap at twice the cost, in fact, especially for a classically trained pianist who's rather addicted to properly notated music, especially when that music is way outside her realm of experience, i.e., anything jazz, rock, blues... .

Classically trained musicians like me tend to have all and any ability to improv squashed out of them at a very young age.

About Playing Flute & Performing, index